Cutting All FT Employee Hours
HCA
72 Posts
We have a dept that is facing budget difficulties. She RIFd a few employees. In addition, instead of RIFing certain employees, she wants the whole department to "feel the pain", so she wants to just close shop on Fridays at 1 p.m. (formerly M-F; 8-5) so EVERYONE would be cut by four hours of pay. Does anyone see any problems with this? I am leery because we hired many people as FT people (with benefits including insurance) and they will no longer be FT. In fact, they will now have to pay a portion of their insurance in order to stay on (they wouldn't have before). Is this okay since she is actually changing hours? Or do we need to keep the FT employees FT if we can since they were hired that way.
Comments
You should not have a problem with cutting 4 hrs off the schedule the ees may be able to collect UI benefits for reduced schedule.
As far as benefits it is the co discretion to adjust the ees contribution amount. I would not do it for morale reasons.
EEs: You are cutting my hours and charging me for insurance.!#@) this!!
Is this a temporary schedule or permanent?
JMO,
Lisa
It looks like it will permanent. Unless things miraculously change but we're govt and I don't see that happening.
Our policy (and state law) does state FT employees work 40 hours, so they won't be considered FT anymore.
Since they will be getting unemployment benefits anyway, I don't know that the cuts will even be that beneficial but that's something we still need to check into.
I was more curious about whether we are going to be sued for cutting hours. Since we are doing it across the board and it's for a legimate business reason, I don't see that being a successful suit but it sure makes for an unhappy work crew when you need (and most people will) full time hours!
Would it be a substantial savings for the company to do this?
RIFS can be and are put in place in a number of ways, non-discriminatorily. A few that come to mind are:
By tenure/seniority within the company.
By seniority within the department.
By department, considering perf. review rating.
By Job title, throughout the company.
By physical location of business unit or plant.
Cut everybody an equal amount of hours.
Reduce particular job titles through elimination.
If she decided to 'spread out the pain' and simply reduce everybody by one work day, I see no violation of anything.
Those affected never, ever get to decide how they feel the RIF should be put in motion. RIFs are the least form of democracy.
It's only going to be about 25-30 employees, but she believes it will be enough of a savings to make the difference. And it is a slow time so it makes sense on many levels. It's just the employees I am worried about.
Do you think I should suggest she think of something else? I just am really worried about the full time employees who were expecting full time pay and benefits, and, now, aren't going to get it. I guess they have the option of quiting, but everyone knows employee retention is what we want!
RIF's and employee retention seldom find company in the same sentence. If I were one of the staff, I would brush up the resume and begin the search.
I agree and I may not have articulated myself properly HCA can reduce the ees schedule and charge for the benefits. What I was trying to state was more on the morale of the ees by doing both. The company may be able to avoid pissing 25- 30 people off by completely laying off 2 or 3 more ees. Morale will be down but the whole dept
won't be in an uproar.
JMO,
Lisa